Students Banned From Homecoming For Handing Out Condoms In Goody Bags To Solicit Votes

Free condoms are seen outside the Benning Stoddert Recreation Center on May 24, 2013 in Washington. AIDS Healthcare Foundation staff and volunteers handed out free condoms and provided a free HIV test as a part of the Condom Nation Big Rig Tour which has the goal of distributing 50 million condoms through out the United States. AFP PHOTO/Brendan SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)\(credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

MULBERRY, Fla. (CBS Tampa) — Two students who were hoping to be homecoming king and queen won’t get that chance after the school caught them giving out condoms in goody bags in an effort to garner votes.

Mulberry High School students Dalton Wiggs and Montana Fulkerson were banned from homecoming activities for handing out condoms along with candy in a campaign stunt.

“We thought it would be funny to get condoms and write ‘Wrap Up Your Vote’ because it yelled to the student body,” Fulkerson told WPTV.

The Polk County School District called the campaign “inappropriate.”

“Students were distributing condoms to solicit homecoming votes. When school administration became aware, they immediately instructed the students to stop this inappropriate activity,” Leah Lauderdale, school district spokeswoman, told The Ledger of Lakeland in a statement. “No students have been suspended from school; however, the students involved will not be allowed to participate in the homecoming activities.”

Fulkerson said the two were not promoting sex and that she personally believes in abstinence.

“We didn’t mean to promote sex,” Fulkerson told WPTV. “We were promoting safe sex and we figured if they were going to be mature enough to do it then they need to do it safely.”

Wiggs calls it a “painful” experience to go through.

“I’m really upset, to be honest,” he told The Ledger. “It took way too much time and effort. And I’ve been waiting my whole high school career just to run for homecoming, and then they deny it and disqualify us the day before voting? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

The homecoming dance will be held Saturday. More than 20 couples are competing to be homecoming king and queen.